Make it stop, Bears!
Nothing says “heartbroken” quite like being a Chicago Bears fan.
Don’t just take my word for it: Bears fans’ words have spoken for themselves.
Research from the betting site FlashPicks ranked each NFL team by a score of 100 based on the number of tweets, Google searches, and Reddit posts containing what it called “heartbroken” language from NFL fanbases.
Guess who topped the list?
That’s right: the Bears took the prize with a sadness score of 58.6 out of 100. The funny thing: the other top five teams — the Detroit Lions (58), Kansas City Chiefs (56.7), Buffalo Bills (54.4), and Cincinnati Bengals (54) — are all winning squads. In fact, the Cleveland Browns and Miami Dolphins are the only other losing teams in the top 10. (So melodramatic.)
According to WGN, 40 Reddit posts on the Bears forum contained words like “alone” and “heartbreak” this season, and more than 500 tweets included the words “sad” or “angry” when discussing the team.
Sounds about right.
After all, how do you revamp the skill positions, grab the No. 1 overall pick after a seven-win season in 2023, and get worse?
And Chiefs fans expect us to feel bad for them before because they didn’t get a three-peat? Please. They merely adopted the heartbreak; we were born in it.
Of course, part of the reason we suffer that dejection as Bears fans is because we have hope to begin with, and this offseason has brought an abundance of it so far.
For once, the Bears landed the most desirable head coaching candidate in the league, hiring Detroit Lions offensive coordinator Ben Johnson to take over their top job and unseat his ex-team as king of the NFC North.
Under his tutelage, Caleb Williams stands a far better chance at becoming a superstar than he did at any point last year, and the roster on paper is better than the 5-12 record they finished with in 2024.
Hopefully, that hope can start to exceed the heartbreak this year, even if it means simply winning a playoff game in the 2025-26 season.
If not, you can bet the Bears will be near the top of that list again next February.